TEXT A The bizarre antics of
sleepwalkers have puzzled police, perplexed scientists, and fascinated writers
for centuries. There is an endless supply of stories about sleepwalkers. Person
have been said to climb on steep roofs, solve mathematical problems, compose
music, walk though plate glass windows, and commit murder in their
deep. How many of these stories have a basic in fact, and how
many are pure fakery No one knows, but if some of the most sensational stories
should be taken with a barrel of salt, others are a matter of record.
In Revere, Massachusetts, a hundred policemen combed a waterfront
neighborhood for a lost boy who left his home in his sleep and woke up five
hours later on a strange sofa in a strange living room, with no idea how he had
gone there. There is an early medical record of a somnambulist
who wrote a novel in his sleep. And the great French writer Voltaire knew a
sleepwalker who once got our of bed, dressed himself, made a polite bow, danced
a minute, and then undressed and went back to bed. At the
university of Iowa, a student was reported to have the habit of getting up in
the middle of the night and walking three-quarters of a mile to the Iowa River.
He would take a swim and then go back to his room to bed. The
world’s champion sleepwalker was supposed to have been an Indian, Pandit
Ramrakha, who walked sixteen miles along a dangerous road without realizing that
he had left his bed. Second in line for the title is probably either a Vienna
housewife or a British farmer. The woman did all her shopping on busy streets in
her sleep. The farmer, in his deep, visited a veterinarian miles away.
The leading expert on sleep in American claims that he had never seen a
sleepwalker. He is Dr. Nathaniel Kleitman, a physiologist at the University of
Chicago. He is said to know more about sleep than any other living man, and
during the last thirty-five years had lost a lot of sleep watching people sleep.
Says he, "Of course, I know that there are sleepwalkers because I have read
about them in the newspapers. But none of my sleepwalkers ever walked, and if I
were to advertise for sleepwalkers for an experiment, I doubt that I’d get many
takers." Sleepwalking, nevertheless, is a scientific reality.
Like hypnosis, it is one of those dramatic, eerie, awe—inspiring phenomena that
sometimes border on the fantastic. It lends itself to controversy and
misconceptions. What is certain about sleepwalking is that it is a symptom of
emotional disturbance, and that the only way to cure it is to remove the worries
and anxieties that cause it. Doctors say that somnambulism is much more common
than is generally supposed. Some have set estimated that there are four million
somnambulists in the United States. Others set the figure even higher. Many
sleep-walkers do not seek help and so are never put on record, which means that
an accurate count can never be made. The simplest explanation of
sleepwalking is that it is the acting out of vivid dream. The dream usually
comes from guilt, worry, nervousness, or some other emotional conflict. The
classic sleepwalker is Shakespeare’s Lady Mac Beth. Her nightly wanderings were
caused by her guilty conscience at having committed murder. Shakespeare said of
her, "The eyes are open but their sense is shut." The age-old
question is: Is the sleepwalker actually awake or asleep Scientists have
decided that he is about half-and-half. Like Lady Mac Beth. he had weighty
problems on his mind. Dr. Zelda Teplitz, who made a ten-year study of the
subject, say, "Some people stay awake all night worrying about their problems.
The sleepwalker thrashes them out in his sleep. He is awake in the muscular
area. partially asleep in the sensory area." In other words, a person can walk
in his sleep, move around, and do other things, but he does not think about what
he is doing. There are many myths about sleepwalkers. One of the
most common is the idea that it’s dangerous or even fatal to waken a sleepwalker
abruptly. Experts say that the shock suffered by a sleepwalker suddenly awakened
is no greater than that Suffered in waking up to the noise of an alarm clock.
Another mistaken belief is that sleepwalkers are immune to injury. Actually most
sleepwalkers trip over rugs or bump their heads on doors at some time or
other. What are the chances of a sleepwalker committing a murder
or doing something else extraordinary in his sleep Some cases of this have been
reported, but they very rarely happen. Of course the few cases that are reported
receive a great deal of publicity. Dr. Teplitz say, "Most people have such great
inhibitions against murder or violence that they would awaken—if someone didn’t
waken them." In general, authorities on sleepwalking agree with her. They think
that people will not do anything in their sleep that is against their own moral
code. As for the publicized cases, Dr. Teplitz points out, "Sleepwalking itself
is dramatic...sleepwalkers can always find an audience. I think that some of
their tall tales get exaggerated in the telling." In her own file of case
histories, there is not one sleepwalker who ever got beyond his own front
door. Parent often explain their children’s—or their
own—nocturnal oddities as sleepwalking. Sleepwalking is used as an excuse for
all kinds of irrational behavior. There is a case on record of a woman who
dreamed that her house was on fire and flung her baby out of the window. Dr.
Teplitz believes that this instance of irrational behavior was not due to
somnambulism. She believes the woman was seriously deranged or insane, not a
sleepwalker. For their own protection, chronic sleepwalkers have
been known to tie themselves in bed, lock their doors, hide the keys, bolt the
windows, and rip up all sorts of gadgets or wake themselves if they should get
out of bed. Curiously enough, they have an uncanny way of avoiding their own
traps when they sleepwalk, so none of their tricks seem to work very well Some
sleepwalkers talk in their sleep loudly enough to wake someone else in the
family who can then shake them back to their senses. Children
who walk in their sleep usually outgrow the habit. In many adults, too, the
condition is more or less temporary. If it happens often, however, the
sleepwalker should seek help. Although sleepwalking itself is nothing to become
alarmed about, the problems that cause the sleepwalking may be very
serious. What does the phrase "taken with a barrel of salt" mean at end of the second paragraph